Moscow Exchange Prepares For ICOs

In preparation of the infrastructure, the Moscow Exchange (MOEX) expects its launching to be this year as it enables companies to create initial coin offerings (ICOs).

According to Moscow Exchange CEO Alexander Afanasiev, the exchange will not list tokens, but provide information about the responsibilities of token issuers, in addition to descriptions of certain tokens and ICOs to investors. He added:

According to reports, the exchange is working on the basic infrastructure development for companies in order to participate in ICOs where they can publish token false data.

Alexander Afanasiev, Moscow Exchange CEO, said that as the exchange won’t be providing the list of tokens, it will still include information on the responsibilities needed for token issuers as an addition to the descriptions made for certain tokens and investors for ICOs.

“Right now we’re looking at this from the point of view of fiat currencies because cryptocurrencies don’t have the status of a legally protected asset. If they obtain that status, we will place them in our system as well,” he added.

In addition, the exchange wanted to issue future contracts for the ICOs guided that there is a demand sufficient of investors. For Afanasiev, the current exchange is conducted for marketing research to garner potential interests in the products and in other types of future specifications that there may be.

The Moscow Exchange served as the main liquidity and discovery center for prices for the financial instruments of Russia. The trades include equities, bonds, derivatives, currencies, commodities and money market instruments that with an additional volume of total trading of around $1.1 trillion as of May 2018.

The Russian State Duma approved the reading of the new laws on the first basis on May as it regulated the cryptocurrency industry. These laws are used in defining cryptocurrencies and tokens in the usage of a property where they lay specifications upon interacting with certain crypto and blockchain-related technologies.

The investment banking arm of the major Russian bank Sberbank and the National Settlement Depository, Sberbank CIB, announced their plans of a pilot on the first official ICO of the country as part of the Moscow Stock Exchange Group. The scheduled launch is expected to be at the end of summer 2018.